Thursday, July 28, 2005

Open my own store?

Always tossed around the idea of opening my own rock climbing store. As many of you know, I'm a passionate rock climber, and know the equipment in the industry better than any bozo you'll find working at those stores.

Couple issues come up, but I think I'm going to figure it out soon.

The first, getting some capital in place. I'll need to rent or buy some property to have the store. Not to mention the overhead (rock climbing wall, employees, etc.), and products I need to keep in stock. My credit is pretty clean, so I don't think I will have too much of a trouble getting a small business loan to start this company.

The second is location, which may be tougher being in Chicago. Doesn't seem to be a huge contingent of outdoor people (which is odd considering the weather). With that said, I may look into keeping this store online. Would be much cheaper to start up, and I could work in my pajamas, which is always a plus. I could always hire a call center outsourcing service to take my calls when I'm not around.

The last problem would be how to get payments. I think I found a couple good credit card processing companies online that could fill the needs. They have competitive rates, good reputations, and provide the service I'll need.